Paediatric cancer burden in Namibia, A 10 year retrospective, analytical study of patients admitted at Windhoek Central Hospital

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Abstract BACKGROUND Research in Namibia has come a long way over the past two decades. Even so, research in the field of paediatric oncology is still lagging behind. Therefore, this study looked at the pattern of paediatric cancer patient over a ten-year period. METHODS A cross-sectional study was done to analyse the paediatric oncology cases that were admitted to the paediatric oncology unit (ward 8 west) at Windhoek Central Hospital (WCH) between 01 January 2011 and 31 December 2020. The study analysed the files of paediatric patients admitted with a paediatric cancer diagnosis from the age of 0 to 16 years. RESULTS A total of 174 paediatric cancer patient files met the inclusion criteria. Haematopoietic cancers were the most commonly occurring diagnosis of a paediatric cancer type in the study population (44.8%), of which leukaemias were the most common type of haematopoietic cancer. The other types of cancer apart from haematopoietic cancers consisted of embryonal cancers (37.9%), soft tissue and bone sarcomas (13.8%), and brain or CNS cancers (3.4%). The median age at diagnosis was 5.13 years with an age range of 0 to 15 years. HIV exposure had an incidence of 6.4%. CONCLUSIONS Haematopoietic cancers remains the number one most common type in Namibia. However, there has been a change in the ranking of the other childhood cancer subtypes over the last 3 decades. The recommendation is that there be better recordkeeping of cancer patient files to capture important information. For follow-up studies, prospective studies are recommended in the future.

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